Hootsuite: One Secure Platform to Improve Citizen Engagement

Ryan Holmes, Founder and CEO

It all started in 2008 when Ryan Holmes, Founder, and CEO of Hootsuite needed a tool to manage numerous social media networks at Invoke-his digital services agency–in Vancouver. Holmes, along with David Tedman, Dario Meli (Founders) and the Invoke team sought to develop a platform that would help them manage the numerous social media accounts and networks. The dire need of a better tool led to the inception of Hootsuite that received great feedback and response when launched. Today, Hootsuite is recognized as the leader in social media management by Forrester – most influential advisory and research firms in the world – and caters to over 16 million customers.

The system’s user interface is relatively a dashboard that supports numerous social network integrations for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn. This social media platform enables its customers to build smarter workflows, thereby, scaling up an organization and delivering ROI. “My goal was to build a “Basecamp for social media,” and that’s how we kind of oriented and launched it out. There weren’t a lot of competitors who were doing that, and that’s what differentiated us out of the gates,” mentions Ryan Holmes, Founder, and CEO of Hootsuite.

Initiating Better Citizen Service

With only 41 percent of citizens trusting governments to do what is right, governments have turned to social media as a significant communication channel – as it’s here that citizens are the most engaged. Hence, due to the growing role of social media in government organizations today, Hootsuite-a widely used social media management platform-has stepped in to streamline and coordinate communications among citizens in a crisis. Enabling governments and agencies-local and national-to engage with communities, Hootsuite helps deliver services efficiently. The firm’s battle-tested technology, extensive ecosystem, and social DNA help organizations and governments create human connections at scale.

Challenges Encountered and Solutions to Eradicate It

From pushing constituents to get health insurances to aiding students with scholarships, alerting people to outages in public transport to educating travelers about the widespread of diseases, and sharing recourses to enable the safety of people during natural disasters, Hootsuite helps governments under pressure to streamline operations and reduce the workforce. The firm has set out to improve citizen engagement, thereby, building an agency’s brand by effectively responding in times of crisis. Moreover, as governments are turning to social media for effective engagement with its citizens, excellent citizen experience is being delivered.

With Hootsuite, government agencies can ‘empower staff’ by allowing teams to engage with citizens directly, without any compromising control over access and messaging. Governments integrating with social media ensure compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and numerous public record laws. Besides, public sentiment can be easily measured as the impact of programs and policies will be uncovered with real-time social media listening and analytics.

Also, Governments or organizations can utilize the firm’s automated ad solution to improve their effectiveness, and can also amplify their social reach through the scalable advocacy solution. The social analytics solution of the firm helps make impactful data-driven decisions, and the real-time social analytics solution provides insights on going-on, public opinions, and surveys. Moreover, it helps identify the benefits of improving social strategies, and agencies by sharing insights about planning and implementing enterprise social media management for government.

The firm’s battle-tested
technology, extensive
ecosystem, and social DNA
help organizations and
governments create human
connections at scale

When Wood Buffalo in Northeastern Alberta was impacted by the Horse River wildfire (also called the Fort McMurray wildfire), over 88,000 residents were severely affected, enabling them to evacuate the region. This is when the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB) took to social media to coordinate crisis communication. The step taken by the community in the state of emergency led to the locals being informed where to go and what to do. The staff of RMWB monitored the social media accounts and published content 24/7. With the help of Hootsuite’s social streams, RMWB could coordinate a social media presence across numerous channels and accounts by a single interface. Hootsuite proved of great help as team members collaborated across the province of Alberta, there was an increase in the Twitter followers when the fire impacted the community which in turn did wonders - evacuating residents successfully.

Utilizing Hootsuite made it much easier to manage inbound and outbound messages, enabling the RMWB to stay connected and organized at the time of crisis. With Hootsuite’s streams, RMWB detected and responded to people in need of help. And, though social handle of the municipality wasn’t mentioned directly, RMWB tracked conversations through keyword monitoring, thereby, tracking and helping the people in need.

Therefore, the most positive outcome witnessed was the evacuation of almost 88,000 residents. People became aware of where they could find life-saving information when they needed it. 90 percent of the posts tweeted by RMWB during the fire was shared using Hootsuite.

What Makes Hootsuite a Market Leader

Considered a leader in the enterprise social media management solutions market today, Hootsuite ensures a partner status is maintained with clients due to its laissez-faire integration philosophy and client responsiveness. Besides, it expands beyond marketing by ensuring that businesses are contributing to the social. It brings about an enhanced review and approval abilities, ensuring departments work together. It also helps demonstrate the impact on revenue and brand health and integrates with the existing tech stack of an organization, industry or firm.

“You have to figure out how to be able to effectively communicate with all of those people and ensure alignment so that everybody is heading in the same direction. That has been one of the big learning and things that I have been focused on,” mentions Holmes to CNBC Make It.

In Conclusion

Today, over 15 million professionals and 800 of the Fortune 1000 have chosen Hootsuite to manage their social media. “Hootsuite is my fifth business, and it has taken as many tries to find the right alignment of entrepreneurial skills and my passions,” says Holmes.

Helping customers connect with customers through marketing and sales channels, Hootsuite believes in the trend of customer engagement that is mostly depended on social media. “It’s where people live and breathe, and brands really need to go there to interact with their customers and potential customers. We help them get there and drive the ROI they spend on social,” concludes Holmes.